Bio & Statement

a brief biography:

Latham Zearfoss makes time-based images and sounds, and sculptures that intervene in ecological ruin. Over the last two decades, Zearfoss has sustained a preoccupation with contemporary identity, and its volatility as a means of building power. Outside of the studio, they have co-lead and contributed to collective motions toward joy and reflection through creative social justice projects. Latham holds degrees from Chicago art schools and a day job at the Chicago Park District. They have exhibited their work and screened their videos internationally and all over the U.S.

an artist's statement:

Nothing original came from me, but give me information to bend and fit and I made interesting shapes. -- Maurice Gee, "Live Bodies"

Latham Zearfoss produces time-based images and objects about selfhood and otherness. Often collaborative, these works ask: how do we come to know ourselves as social human subjects? Across media, the work is anchored in the belief that identity is a cumulative, political effect, inherited through a kind of collective bargaining. These themes find evocative, sensual resonances through dramatic shifts in color and light, reverberating soundscapes populated by disembodied voices, queer iterations of the not-noticed and everyday, and “soft borders” - spatial markings of undetermined significance that invite participation, transgression, even penetration.